the major cause of price gap is still news-driven, which triggers demand, every price gap you can map it to a news release. The difficulty increase affects btc price in a minor way, in that as it is more expensive to produce btc which gives btc a sense of higher worth, just like other commodities. But mainly it's news that drives btc.

not so sure that would be good short term.. if you followed the overstock situation, coinbase turned it into a reverse layaway plan. They dropped their instant buy from 10btc/week to 1btc/week so if you are trying to shop for anything over ~$80 you will have to wait 5-7 days to buy enough coins from coinbase... but if you already have 400 coins and want to cash out into items, then that is a lot more selling pressure than buying.

not so sure that would be good short term.. if you followed the overstock situation, coinbase turned it into a reverse layaway plan. They dropped their instant buy from 10btc/week to 1btc/week so if you are trying to shop for anything over ~$80 you will have to wait 5-7 days to buy enough coins from coinbase... but if you already have 400 coins and want to cash out into items, then that is a lot more selling pressure than buying.

Exactly why coinbase is for total noobs, and children. Why would one go to coinbase and establish such a bottlekneck?It's worthless if you are moving large amounts. Nothing beats a real exchange.The tiered confirmation system there sucks too. I've been confirmed at all the exchanges...no problem; but when I go to get confirmed at coinbase, I always get rejected, because they always try to ask questions from my childhood, and I don't see how their questions could ever be answered; I'ts like they're asking housing questions from when I was 2yrs old, how the fuzz am I supposed to know that? I gave up after a half-dozen attempts over a two week period... but no worries with those ridiculous limits, I'm totally stoked with Bitstamp and Camp BX

What is a real exchange? Coinbase is great for getting cash into bitcoin and back again. I use exchanges to trade between currencies, but there really isn't another choice to get $$ out of it.

I can buy & sell as many btc to fiat, or fiat to btc as I want......and the reverse at Bitstamp & Camp BX. No limits, and low fees... no shennanigans... I could sell all XX BTC today, and have cash in my hand in a couple days, no problem with either.That's what I mean by "Real exchange"What I wish is for Gox to get the US withdrawals going in a quicker manner again....hehe, now that was cool.

What is a real exchange? Coinbase is great for getting cash into bitcoin and back again. I use exchanges to trade between currencies, but there really isn't another choice to get $$ out of it.

coinbase was about half-good and now about a quarter-good mainly since only a few options exist for users statewide (as phoenix mentioned)... OKpay was a nice way to get money into btc-e but they are on hold last I checked..

interesting to see what Circle does when they launch and if kraken ever gets approvals to allow USD from stateside sources

What is a real exchange? Coinbase is great for getting cash into bitcoin and back again. I use exchanges to trade between currencies, but there really isn't another choice to get $$ out of it.

I can buy & sell as many btc to fiat, or fiat to btc as I want......and the reverse at Bitstamp & Camp BX. No limits, and low fees... no shennanigans... I could sell all XX BTC today, and have cash in my hand in a couple days, no problem with either.That's what I mean by "Real exchange"What I wish is for Gox to get the US withdrawals going in a quicker manner again....hehe, now that was cool.

I'd never use mtgox to handle fiat mainly because of the delays. Despite their "being fixed" over the past few months, I still hear of random issues.

CampBX always has great reviews and I'd trust them.

Coinbase is just far faster and works well for me. You're up and running in minutes and it's seamless with bank accounts. It's also superb for folks who want merchant capabilities, as it's built-in. There are some limits if you're unverified, but they're reasonable.. 50BTC purchase / 10 BTC sell, per day. For being unverified, that's very reasonable.

I think the limits go away entirely after a certain amount of time being verified.

What is a real exchange? Coinbase is great for getting cash into bitcoin and back again. I use exchanges to trade between currencies, but there really isn't another choice to get $$ out of it.

coinbase was about half-good and now about a quarter-good mainly since only a few options exist for users statewide (as phoenix mentioned)... OKpay was a nice way to get money into btc-e but they are on hold last I checked..

interesting to see what Circle does when they launch and if kraken ever gets approvals to allow USD from stateside sources

I think OKpay has changed it's mind, well for GBP if you're in the UK.

Coinbase is just far faster and works well for me. You're up and running in minutes and it's seamless with bank accounts. It's also superb for folks who want merchant capabilities, as it's built-in. There are some limits if you're unverified, but they're reasonable.. 50BTC purchase / 10 BTC sell, per day. For being unverified, that's very reasonable.

I think the limits go away entirely after a certain amount of time being verified.

nah, they aren't allowed to hold customer money in their accounts so when you buy 50btc you lock in a price and then wait...wait...for your btc. Selling isn't terrible except they make some wide spreads lately and those 1% fees each way add up

sadly coinbase is turning into a joke on the buy side and is focusing mostly on merchants for the sell side.

Coinbase is just far faster and works well for me. You're up and running in minutes and it's seamless with bank accounts. It's also superb for folks who want merchant capabilities, as it's built-in. There are some limits if you're unverified, but they're reasonable.. 50BTC purchase / 10 BTC sell, per day. For being unverified, that's very reasonable.

I think the limits go away entirely after a certain amount of time being verified.

nah, they aren't allowed to hold customer money in their accounts so when you buy 50btc you lock in a price and then wait...wait...for your btc. Selling isn't terrible except they make some wide spreads lately and those 1% fees each way add up

sadly coinbase is turning into a joke on the buy side and is focusing mostly on merchants for the sell side.

I think OKpay has changed it's mind, well for GBP if you're in the UK.

I'll have to check back with them.. I have a verified OKPay account so I rather not bother setting up with others

I'd have to agree with your statements on Coinbase here, they used to be one of the best gigs in town but with their new limits, 1% each way, and their customer service has turned me away from them. Their service has gotten better lately, but a few months ago it left a sour enough taste in my mouth to never use them again.

I'm fully verified with coinbase, and it works great. I've never had a delay. We need better choices sure, but with the amount of fraud in this business, I'd rather stick with the largest or best known choice. I'd also like to stick with a company in the USA.

I'm fully verified with coinbase, and it works great. I've never had a delay. We need better choices sure, but with the amount of fraud in this business, I'd rather stick with the largest or best known choice. I'd also like to stick with a company in the USA.

I like Coinbase as well, but they recently reduced their instant buy limit from 10 BTC per day to 1 BTC per day.

A lot of folks have purchased BTC from Coinbase, waited 5 days for them to be available, and then had the transaction cancelled right before the BTC was supposed to be available after the price went up. Coinbase can cancel transactions and call them "high risk" whenever it benefits them to do so.

They also provide no insurance on deposits. I use Coinbase, but don't particularly trust them and don't keep any BTC or USD in Coinbase for longer than it takes to complete a transaction.

I'm fully verified with coinbase, and it works great. I've never had a delay. We need better choices sure, but with the amount of fraud in this business, I'd rather stick with the largest or best known choice. I'd also like to stick with a company in the USA.

I like Coinbase as well, but they recently reduced their instant buy limit from 10 BTC per day to 1 BTC per day.

A lot of folks have purchased BTC from Coinbase, waited 5 days for them to be available, and then had the transaction cancelled right before the BTC was supposed to be available after the price went up. Coinbase can cancel transactions and call them "high risk" whenever it benefits them to do so.

They also provide no insurance on deposits. I use Coinbase, but don't particularly trust them and don't keep any BTC or USD in Coinbase for longer than it takes to complete a transaction.

Hopefully these issues will get better with time.

This right here happens all the time, and is shady, however, I have had them straight try to steal from me--and I've seen them do it to others--and that is when I had to get my own bank involved and cease any future relationship with Coinbase, especially after working with their support for over 3 weeks and the only response I got was "this should be fixed now." -- and of course, it wasn't.